page_title: Country Club Plaza
section_title: Layout and use
hierarchical_section_title: Country Club Plaza / Layout and use
caption_attribution_description: English: Giralda Tower, Country Club Plaza, Kansas City, Missouri
context_page_description: The Country Club Plaza is a privately-owned regional shopping center in the Country Club District of Kansas City, Missouri. Opened in 1923, it was the first planned suburban shopping center and the first regional shopping center to accommodate shoppers arriving by car.
  Planned in 1922 by J. C. Nichols and designed in Moorish Revival style echoing the architecture of Seville, Spain, the Plaza comprises high-end retail establishments, restaurants, and entertainment venues, as well as offices. The Country Club Plaza is named in the Project for Public Spaces' list 60 of the World's Great Places.
  The center consists of 18 separate buildings representing 784,000 square feet of retail space and 219,000 square feet of office space.
context_section_description: The basic design of the Country Club Plaza reflects classic European influences, especially those of Seville, Spain, yet it does not include a traditional open plaza. There are more than 30 statues, murals, and tile mosaics on display in the area, as well as major architectural reproductions, such as a half-sized Giralda Tower of Seville (the tallest building in the Plaza). The Plaza also includes reproductions of San Francisco's Path of Gold streetlights. Other works of art celebrate the classics, nature, and historical American themes such as westward expansion, and a magnificent fountain featuring four horses rearing up on their hind legs, designed by Henri-Léon Gréber.
  Although the Plaza was designed and built to accommodate visitors arriving by automobile, it is unlike modern shopping malls with sprawling parking lots: parking is concealed in multilevel parking garages beneath and behind the shops, or on the rooftops of buildings.
  The Plaza was also the first shopping center to use the percentage lease, where rents are based on a percentage of the gross receipts of tenants.  This concept was novel when Nichols invented it, but it is now a standard practice in commercial leases.
  Several companies are based in the Country Club Plaza area, including American Century Investments, Russell Stover Candies, Inergy, and Gates Bar-B-Q.
caption: The Giralda Tower, inspired by the original at the Cathedral of Seville.
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